Prev | Current Page 136 | Next

Bechtel, John Hendricks, 1841-

"Slips of Speech : a Helpful Book for Everyone Who Aspires to Correct the Everyday Errors of Speaking"

"
"Almost all the irregularities in the construction of any language
have arisen from the ellipsis of some words which were originally
inserted in the sentence and made it regular."-- Murray's Grammar. The
sentence should end with "and which made it regular."
The one, the other
When the one and the other refer to things previously mentioned, the
one applies to the first mentioned, and the other to the last
mentioned.
"Homer was a genius, Virgil an artist: in the one we most admire the
man; in the other, the work."
_________________________________________________________________
142
CHAPTER VI
Number
Many persons of moderate education regard nouns that do not end with s
or es as singular. Even the gifted pen of Addison once slipped so far
as to betray him into using the word seraphim, in the singular.
Cherubim, Seraphim
The words cherub and seraph, are singular. Cherub, as applied to a
little child, takes the English plural, cherubs. As applied to an
order of angels, it takes the Hebrew plural, cherubim. The singular,
seraph, has an English plural, seraphs, as well as the Hebrew plural,
seraphs.


Pages:
124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148